Sometimes it's useful to be able to access your server using a different SSH port to the usual 22. There may be cases where your own outgoing port 22 is blocked due to a firewall that you cannot configure or due to other cases out of your control.

How to Change SSH Port

You can change  port while your server boots by providing a small script, usually known as a "startup script" or "init script" via systemctl. This special script runs when your server is built for the first time and is useful for quickly configuring and bootstrapping a server.  

SSH settings are usually stored in /etc/ssh/sshd_config but this may change depending on the distribution you pick when selecting a server. This guide assumes you are using Ubuntu.

One simple way to change the port that ssh is listening to is to simply insert a new line into its configuration file.

echo "Port <your chosen port number>" >> /etc/ssh/sshd_config
systemctl restart sshd

When creating a server, you can insert this bash script to change your SSH port. Pick a port that is open for you and isn't blocked by a firewall. Once the server has booted, you will be able to login to your server using the port you set.

The startup script field in the server creation panel

To login to your server, you can use the -p argument for ssh to designate a port

ssh  -p <port> root@<your_server_ip>

You can then connect to your VPS via an SSH client like PuTTy, simply changing the "Port" field to the one you enabled.

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